The story of John McCrae's World War I poem interweaves the poet's words with information about the war, details of daily life in the trenches, accounts of McCrae's experience in his field hospital, and the circumstances that contributed to the poem's creation. Simultaneous.
A beautifully designed collection of essays on war, loss and remembrance to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the writing of Canada's most famous poem. In early 1915, the death of a young friend on the battlefields of Ypres inspired Canadian soldier, field surgeon and poet John McCrae to write "In Flanders Fields." Within months of the poem's December 1915 publication in the British magazine Punch it became part of the collective consciousness in North America and Europe, and its extraordinary power has endured over the decades and across generations. In this anthology, Canada's finest historians, novelists and poets contemplate the evolving meaning of the poem; the man who wrote it and the World War I setting from which it emerged; its themes of valour, grief and remembrance; and the iconic image of the poppy. Among the thirteen contributors: Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire (ret'd) writes about the emotional meaning of the poem for war veterans; Tim Cook describes the rich and varied life of McCrae; Frances Itani revisits her time in Flanders, and mines the acts of witnessing and remembering; Kevin Patterson offers a riveting depiction of the adrenaline-fueled work of a WWI field surgeon; Mary Janigan reveals the poem's surprisingly divisive effect during the 1917 federal election; Ken Dryden tells us how lines from the poem ended up on the wall of the Montreal Canadiens' dressing room; and Patrick Lane recalls a Remembrance Day from his childhood in a moving reflection on how war shapes us all. Gorgeously designed in full colour with archival and contemporary images, In Flanders Fields: 100 Years will reflect and illuminate the importance of art in how we process war and loss.
Bang goes another deafening explosion. Though they are young, the birds are used to it and do not flinch. It is 1916. A spindly tree stands in No Man’s Land during the First World War amid wooden stumps and razor-sharp wire. Two birds sit in the tree. Hatched into the horrors of war, they try to figure out why the constant danger occurs. Humans live in trenches on either side – but are they friends or enemies? As the war rages on, glimmers of hope and colour appear. Can the birds’ plan to sing for peace finally see an end to the years of danger? ‘The Birds of Flanders Fields’ is a work of fiction set on the front lines of the First World War. Download the full eBook and explore supporting teaching materials at www.twinkl.com/originals Join Twinkl Book Club to receive printed story books every half-term at www.twinkl.co.uk/book-club (UK only).
The horrors of the First World War released a great outburst of emotional poetry from the soldiers who fought in it as well as many other giants of world literature. Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and W B Yeats are just some of the poets whose work is featured in this anthology. The raw emotion unleashed in these poems still has the power to move readers today. As well as poems detailing the miseries of war there are poems on themes of bravery, friendship and loyalty, and this collection shows how even in the depths of despair the human spirit can still triumph.
DIVRich selection of powerful, moving verse includes Brooke's "The Soldier," Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," "In Flanders Fields," by Lieut. Col. McCrae, more by Hardy, Kipling, many others. /div
The 126 poems in this superb collection of 19th and 20th century British and American verse range from famous poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Whitman, and Frost to less well-known poets. Includes 10 selections from the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
From the Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of Forrest Gump: “A fascinating, evenhanded, page-turning account” of Ypres’s pivotal WWI battles (San Francisco Chronicle). The Ypres Salient in Belgian Flanders was the most notorious and dreaded territory in all of World War I—possibly of any war in history. After Germany’s failed attempt to capture Britain’s critical ports along the English Channel, a bloody stalemate ensued in this pastoral area no larger than the island of Manhattan. Ypres became a place of horror, heroism, and terrifying new tactics and technologies: poison gas, tanks, mines, air strikes, and the unspeakable misery of trench warfare. Drawing on the journals of the men and women who were there, Winston Groom has penned a drama of politics, strategy, the human heart, and the struggle for victory against all odds. This ebook features 16 pages of black-and-white historical photographs. “Everything nonfiction should be.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Groom reconstructs a forgotten military passage that serves as a cautionary tale about war’s consequences.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Groom’s account, full of detail and the smell of gunsmoke, is expertly paced and free of dull stretches.” —Kirkus Reviews “Moving . . . Inspiring . . . An important and brilliantly written book.” —Booklist
The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses is a unique anthology of poetry about the natural world. The rich poetic history of grass spans the centuries, from the pastoral poems of ancient Rome to the fields and prairies of the New World. The rapturous idealizations of William Blake’s “echoing green” and William Wordsworth’s “splendour in the grass” stand in vivid contrast to the obliterating greenery on human battlefields in war poems such as John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” and Carl Sandburg’s “Grass,” or to the work of contemporary poets—Lucia Perillo, Harryette Mullen, Denise Levertov, and Gary Soto among them—who reflect on an age of environmental crisis. Here is a rich array of poets from around the world, including Virgil, T’ao Ch’ien, Bashō, Andrew Marvell, Robert Burns, Victor Hugo, Christina Rossetti, Rainer Maria Rilke, Anna Akhmatova, Willa Cather, Ingeborg Bachmann, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Tomas Tranströmer, Sherman Alexie, and Derek Walcott, in a dazzling celebration of our complicated relationship to nature.